5:00 Fridays

It seems that longitude and latitude have gone a bit haywire. How is it that Raleigh, North Carolina has swapped places with soggy Seattle. Or perhaps my fair city is doing a do-si-do with drizzly London. As I sit here writing the rain is thrashing against the windows, Mother Nature's drumbeat beckoning the sprouts from the red earth. Rain can be poetic, indeed it was the perfect backdrop for the end of Breakfast at Tiffany's. But enough with the water logging, Mother Nature. I.Can't.Take.It.Anymore.

Perhaps a couple swigs of this will assuage my soaked, and decidedly crabby, disposition of late. Thanks to the fine folks at Rain Organics Vodka for this delightful cocktail concoction.

Sidebar: The glass bottle of Rain is so fantastic that I have saved an empty one to turn into a kicky little one-of-a-kind lamp. So who can help me craft such a lamp? I'm just an ideas girl here, I'm not handy or crafty.


Rain-Tea-Ni

2 shots of Rain vodka (organic vodka!)
mint iced tea (I like my just a tish sweetened. I am in the South, after all.)

Grab your chilled martini glass (You do still keep them chilled, right?). Add the vodka, top it off with mint iced tea. Garnish with a lemon wedge and sprig of mint.

Now get out there and a Stop-the-Rain dance. The more Rain-Tea-Nis you drink, the more effective your dancing becomes.

Wordless Wednesday: Juxtaposition

A Wonderful Way to Celebrate Earth Day!

I could devour books and never be satiated. Even though they are not made of chocolate or covered in marshmallows and caramel, they are fodder for my soul, escape from my reality, Red Bull for my brain. Books feed me in ways that sugar never can. And you know how much I love me some sugar.

Ever since I discovered Barefoot Books I have coveted most everything in the catalog. Lucky for me my dad has showered the boys with amazing titles from the collection. You can read more about my love affair with these marvelous books here. The latest book I have been reading to Bird and Deal is called The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales. The book is chock full of stories, snippets about the countries from which the stories hail, eco tips, and activities to accompany each tale. A story, geography lesson, and craft project or recipe in each chapter! You know that is totally my cup of tea.

The book takes us a fantastic trip around the world with a focus on different cultures' perspective on how to achieve harmony with the earth. We have read folk tales from Australia, India, Wales, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, and Bali. Bird is so keen on this trip around the globe because he attends an international studies school, where everything in the curriculum centers on global insights. He and Deal cannot wait to get their passports stamped with the seals of the many countries we read about (however, it is highly unlikely that they'll be heading to Kazakhstan or Nigeria...Wales and Australia are shoe-ins...one day).

So here's the scoop. You too can get your hands on this book just in time for Earth Day on April 22! What's even better is that Barefoot Books has partnered with Eco-Libris to plant a tree for each copy of Earth Tales sold. Is there a better way to help the planet and a young mind at the same time? And I assure you, you will learn a thing or two and have a rejuvenated awe for our planet along the way. Here's the link to order this fine anthology of earth tales.

You might think reading Dirt & Noise gets you nothing, but I'm here to squash that right this minute. You can get 10% off your online purchase through April 30, 2009 when you simply enter the code SCETALES at check out. Now don't say I never gave you anything (weekly hangover excluded).

And fret not, my friends. I also have one book to give away to a lucky reader on April 10!

Here are the deets:
Leave me a comment answering the following questions. You get an extra entry for tweeting this giveaway and yet another one for posting about it. Just leave me a link to the tweet and the post.

Go here and tell me what Barefoot Book(s) you would like to add to your book shelf.

2. What are you doing to conserve our resources?

How Bottle Feeding Screwed Up My Sons

With children in tow, even the most mundane of activities becomes an adventure (or a scene). Take our recent outing to Target. The plan was to pick out a birthday gift for a four-year old buddy of Deal's, but the trip turned into an anatomy lesson. With me as the live model.

Bird, Deal, and I were walking hand in hand (which by the way, delights me to no end). We walked past a rack of bras in vivid colors, polka dots, stripes, and argyle prints. Ha ha, I just used the word "rack" in a sentence about bras! Dang, I am funny without even trying. I kill myself.

So as we traipse by, Deal stops, stares intently, his dark brown eyes with excruciatingly long lashes moving side to side as if watching a tennis match. Then he exclaims, "Mommy, I think you need to get the blue one with the green polka dots for your things hanging on your body!"

Then I, of course, stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes darted all around to gauge who was within earshot. That particular Target is across the street from Mac Daddy's office, so with my general good fortune, I expected to see his boss in the One Spot right next to me. As luck would have it, the only people laughing at me were strangers, which was good because things got a whole lot better.

Bird, in his all-knowing five-year old brilliance, tells Deal, "Those things hanging off Mommy are her hips!" He practically spit when enunciating the "s" in hips.

So then Deal says, "Well, Mommy, buy the polka dot one of those for your hips."

Mind you we are all still standing hand in hand in the middle of the aisle. Apparently embarrassment leaks out through your soles because I was still glued to the floor. I could have easily just nodded my head in agreement, shooing the boys on the to the toy department. That would have been the easy road, which I tend not to take. I just couldn't let my sons confuse breasts for hips. I knew not breastfeeding them was bound to fuck them up somehow!

I inhaled deeply and told the boys, "Actually, they are called breasts. My hips are here." (requiring me to drop their hands so I could gesticulate and put my hands on my hips)

Their eyes bugged out of their darling little heads.

They both uttered "Breasts?!" in disbelieving unison.

"Breasts." I said, emphatically overstating the "s."

I thought I was out of the bra strewn woods, ready to move on.

That's when Deal asked, "So what are those round pointy things on there, those other things on your breasts?"

"Nibs!" exclaimed Bird with sheer exasperation.

I give up.